Hometown Hot Rodding - August 2014

Carlo DeFranco's love affair with Mustangs began back in 1994 at age 14 when he would lie awake on summer nights and listen for the distinctive rumble of his neighbor's red '94 GT convertible cruising by. He loved the new cars while growing up, but movies such as Bullitt and Gone In 60 Seconds fueled his desire to own a vintage Mustang one day. Years down the road, Carlo was performing an extensive search of '67-69 Mustangs and found this '69 SportsRoof car in lower Wisconsin. Seeing that it was an original California car with a solid undercarriage and very little rust throughout the body, he jumped at the chance. The story from the seller is that it was shipped to Schaumburg, Illinois, in the mid 1980s where it was painted red, then put into storage. It was purchased again in late 2008 and received a full restoration and repaint back to the original Black Jade Metallic—a wise decision, we think. That's how it looked when Carlo purchased the car in 2009 and brought it to Dundee, Illinois, very close to its second owner in Schaumburg, Illinois.

Carlo loves the vintage look, but doesn't consider himself a purist, so he decided to personalize his Mustang with touches like sequential LED taillights, LED instrument cluster lights, wood rim steering wheel, Flowmaster exhaust, and Mach 1–style air dam and spoiler. For performance, he upgraded the distributer, replaced the two-barrel carb with a four-barrel, and swapped on Magnum 500 wheels with BFGoodrich Radial T/A tires for more grip.

1968 El Camino SS
Frederic Paquette
Windsor, Quebec, Canada

3/3

El Caminos might be somewhat common in the States, but up in Canada Frederic Paquette tells us they aren't very common at all. That's why he was stoked to run across a true SS396 Elky in great condition. It's been a father/son project for 21-year-old Paquette that has focused mostly on updating the performance, since the paint and bodywork were already finished. The 325hp 396 was rebuilt with higher compression, forged crank and rods, COMP Cams Magnum camshaft, oval-port heads, Edelbrock Air-Gap intake and 750-cfm carb, and Hedman shorty headers. The rest of the Elky is currently stock, but Paquette says thanks to PHR's influence he plans on slowly turning it into a Pro Touring machine with bucket seats, upgraded suspension, brakes, wheels, and tires. There may even be EFI and an LS swap in the cards as well. He'd love to get out on track eventually, but for the time being, Paquette tells everyone it's his “Sunday car for the ride to church.”